Chapter 15
The Book of the Dead
It had taken a bit of convincing before Dad finally let me forage in the forest like I had been doing for years. It wasn't as hard as I expected it to be the second time. Perhaps the threat from Negan served in persuading him the rest of the way. He wanted me to bring someone along, though, and insisted it was him but if I was given the choice I asked for Enid instead. She got me better and we worked well with one another. I didn't like working with Dad for the simple reason being that he was so freaking overprotective and I didn't want him to find out about my power… not yet at least.

Enid couldn't always come along though and it could sometime be really hard bringing as much as I could back at times. Twice Negan's men came to town and I was certain to give them their due, receiving the fresh goods I had gathered from the forest an earning his compliments of praise each time.

I hated it all, especially when he praised me. It turned my stomach to hear those words coming from him. With everything I found for them it was less I could give to my people and that was what made the arrangement unbearable.

The next week on the day of their arrival, I turned into town with a heavy sack. I had caught a fat quail, raided a nest to find fifteen tiny spotted eggs, caught two decently sized bass, fished for mussels, found some greens, and gathered up a large basket of blackberries.

It wasn't as enjoyable as it normally was, since I knew it would all be given to the Saviors when they came and I tried not to let the sight of the food make my stomach growl with longing.

As I worked, I chewed on a hunk of pine. Other people disliked the taste and most ate it only when there was nothing else to eat, but me personally, I really liked the taste. I actually found it very enjoyable and listed it in my top favorite flavors. It reminded me of the forest and was a deep, fresh taste, even if it was hard to chew. And there were worse things I could have consumed, like cigarettes or alcohol.

When I approached the gate I spotted Gabrielle just as he was closing it.

"Judith." He said in surprise before switching directions to open it once more.

"Is Dad back already?" I asked, hoping greatly that he was. Instead, my heart sank as my irritation was realized.

"No, I'm afraid he's not." And I saw the large trucks before he had the chance to tell me. "Remember, be on your best manners." He warned me.

"Aren't I always?"

He gave me a look and I surrendered. He was the boss if none of my other bosses were presently in town.

"Alright, alright I'll behave."

Before I left he put a hand on my shoulder. "I want you to know, I hate this, Judith. I don't like having you in that man's presence."

"I hate it, too." I said, not meeting his gaze. "But it's better if it's me than someone else. I know you don't think that, but it really is."

And with that I shrugged his hand off and walked on towards the most heavily guarded house. I spotted Negan while he was talking to someone and as I neared I realized it was Spencer.

I felt some big red flags waving in my head at the sight of those two. Something definitely wasn't right about this. Why was Spencer talking with Negan?

It was probably a bad idea, most of the ideas I had seemed to be bad ones lately, but I couldn't stop myself from following at a safe distance, dodging behind shrubbery and trees to keep up as they strode down the street.

"I'm thinking…" Negan began as Spencer kept pace with him, "and I think about how Rick fucking threatened to kill me. How he clearly hates my fucking guts… but he's out there right now like a busy fucking bee… gathering shit to give me—on a leg that's still healing not to mention, so I don't hurt any of the nice folks living here, or worse, his kids; his badass kid son and his sweet, mouthy little girl so full of spunk and ballsiness. They're all swallowing that hatred to get shit done. That takes guts."

Now I knew why my dad was still alive then. Negan, on some twisted level, respected him.

He glanced back towards Spencer and continued. "Then I think about you… Spencer… the guy who waited until Rick was gone, to sneak over to talk to me to get me to do his dirty work so that he could take Rick's place."

Oh, so that's what it was then. That was typical. He was always calling every single one of Dad's decisions into question and they'd been butting heads for about as long as I could remember. Plus, I always felt that Spencer was spineless and here was the proof. Foolish traitor…

"If you wanted to take over why not just kill Rick and take the fuck over?" Negan asked.

I wanted to scoff. Michonne, Carl, Aaron and the rest would never allow it. Spencer would be dead before Dad hit the floor, and he didn't even have the stones to assassinate my father. He was a coward, that's why he was asking Negan to do it instead.

My thoughts snapped back as I caught something in his face just then. As Negan glanced sideways, eyeing Spencer with an odd expression while he answered his own question, just then. "You know why?"

Just then a looming dread swam over me and I could tell by the sudden glint in Negan's eye and the way his lip turned up that something terrible was about to happen.

Spencer didn't catch on as quickly while he struggled for an answer to Negan's question. "I don't… I didn't…"

But the question was actually rhetorical as he sneered at Spencer. "Because you got no guts!"

It was the fastest I had ever seen Negan move. I saw Spencer's intestines hit the ground before I knew what had happened.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

It was horrible. Red was everywhere, like someone had spilled a can of paint and threw it on Spencer as he lied on the sidewalk. Intestines as thick as vacuum tubing spread over the ground and the look in Spencer's face as he took his final breaths was forever frozen on his face.

My eyes traveled to the glinting knife in Negan's hand as it was catching the sun and my mind finally just registered what happened. It was quite possibly the worst thing I had ever seen in my life.

But I couldn't look away and neither could Negan, though he looked more entranced than horrified at the sight of it all.

"Oh how embarrassing!" He announced gleefully. "There they are! They were inside you the whole time. You did have guts. I've never been so wrong before in my life!" He made to turn away as he wiped his knife clean on a handkerchief one of his men handed to him. "Clean this up before a kid sees…"

He didn't finish that thought as he turned and saw me standing stiff and frozen nearby.

He looked surprised, actually surprised and even momentarily regretful, like that had been the absolute last thing he wanted to do.

"Ah fuck, Judy." He said pinching the bridge of his nose gallingly.

I didn't say a word. Without a single exchange I swung my pack around and threw the whole thing on the ground, letting the contents spill out and reminding me momentarily of a woven cornucopia. Before I heard anything else I sprinted away, intent on putting as much distance between me and that savage.

I wasn't going to go home, he'd find me there. Instead I charged towards the front gate. No one was guarding it for some reason so no one could open it in time. I think I might have been running a bit too fast for them to manage it anyways.

Years of being chased up trees by wild animals and climbing the wall on a weekly basis paid off as I skittered my sparse weight up the bars and leapt over the edge of the gate and the screened outer second. Some people yelled for me to come back right as I leapt it, but I ignored them. There were walkers on the other side and I landed on the face of one before kicking it sharply in the head, rendering it deader than before. There were a few others but I moved fast, dodging around the ambling ones that didn't dodge first and I ducked into the forest before anyone could think twice. Later I would be grateful for the cover of the screened gate so no one would see the lone walker that darted away from me as I sprinted.

It felt safer in the forest. It was always safer in there. With people—with others—that's where the real danger was. That's where people died.

I ran and ran and kept running, stopping only when I reached the guards of the island.

There I stopped, leaning against the effigy of the great god.

"Hades," I gasped, panting and trying to swallow. When I calmed down enough I looked up at him. I didn't know what to say to the god of death about Spencer's passing. The man was spineless, sure, but even he didn't deserve to be gutted in such a graphic, horrible way. I turned from the god and followed the path into his army of dead.

Styx felt so quiet, but once over it, I leapt from the boat and sprinted up the path, shouting when I saw the edges of the garden.

"Vanessa? Are you here?"

"Judith?" I turned and she stood right in front of me, a look of concern on her face when she saw my anguished demeanor. I wanted to rush to her and bury my face in her beautiful housecoat, but I knew I would only burry my face in empty air. Instead I stood there, stiff and still as I sobbed at last. Her arms reached for me, but couldn't make contact.

"Oh! Oh, my little beetle. What happened?"

I couldn't speak. I was crying much too hard to get any words out, least nothing coherent.

"Come inside," She said, moving like she was trying to put an arm around me and lead me in. For a moment I imagined I could feel it, but I really couldn't.

She sat me down in the big cushioned armchair and I hugged one of the pillows tight as I tried to compose myself.

"When you're ready," Vanessa said patiently.

I sobbed a bit longer but when I calmed at last I told her what happened and I told her everything that had led to that moment prior, then I cried more after that.

Vanessa looked pityingly at me and attempted to console me once more. "Oh Beetle. I don't know what to say."

"I didn't see Spencer when he died. I mean, it wasn't like when Glenn and Abraham died. He just… wasn't there."

"Does everyone die the same?" She asked in her lesson tone when she wanted me to think critically and was testing me on something.

"No but I thought…"

"Spencer didn't have anyone here to look after. All his people were gone before he left. There was no reason to linger."

"But he wanted to be the new leader. Wouldn't he stay for a while at least?"

"He was not suitable." She said simply. "It was not his true passion. I'm sure the idea buzzed in his head quite a lot but it didn't live in his heart. His mother was the leader and somehow he thought that that made him fit for the task."

I hugged the pillow tighter. "It feels wrong to talk about him now. I don't mind talking about the living, but the dead… they might hear."

"He's moved on." She told me matter-of-factly.

"And you're sure about that?"

"Well if he were around here I'd know. When you're dead and lingering you feel things so differently. You can sense spirits easier. The body you have tends to act a bit like a muffler so you can't really feel someone the way a ghost can."

I thought about her words, but my thoughts kept returning to the debacle I was caught in.

Out of instinct I curled up with my knees pressed to my chest. "I wish… I wish John were here." I whimpered, my mind flying to my other teacher for the first time in ages. "I—I miss him so much."

"Oh… I do, too, Little Beetle." She reached for me, and I could tell by the longing in her expression she wished dearly that she could hold me if just to offer better comfort than she had to give. Her gaze lingered on me, gentle and sympathetic as she thought.

"What do I do, Vanessa?" I begged pitifully, tears pouring so profoundly from my eyes. "I don't know what to do. I feel so… lost."

She was quiet for so long that for a time I was afraid she would have no answers for me. Finally, she leaned forward. "Come with me."

Wiping up my face, I got to my feet and followed her up the stairs to her bedroom. I rarely ever went up there. Even if she was dead and she didn't technically need it, it felt intrusive to invade her private room without permission.

Inside was a little bed shoved in the far left corner under a round window and spread with white sheets and a fan quilt. A chest stood at the foot of the bed. Aside from it was a bedside table with an old oil lamp and next to that a tall bookshelf. In the opposite corner was an old vanity and on the other side of that was a chifferobe filled entirely with Vanessa's old clothes. The room opened up to a set of French glass doors that led to the bathroom and water closet. A beautiful porcelain bath stood to the left while off in the right corner was a sort of closet for the toilet and sink.

No matter how many times I visited this island I always managed to be impressed by the sophisticated beauty.

Vanessa drew close to the opposite wall facing the bed where a set of shelves nailed into the beams stood.

"Are you stronger?" Vanessa asked me and I knew she was referring to the first time we met when I was told to drag her body out and dig a grave for her. I was no less skinny than that meek little mouse, but I was much stronger than her now.

"Yes."

"Then take down the things from that second shelf."

I obeyed and when the shelf was all cleared I found an odd indent in the wall, like a door that had been cleverly hidden behind the items and books.

"Open it."

I found the notch and pulled hard. There was a creaking groan as it swung open, trailing cobwebs and dust as it moved for the first time in decades it seemed. I coughed, swatting away the dust and peering curiously inside this secret panel. Anything that needed to be locked away had to be something very important.

It was a book; an ancient tome with the impression of a winding twisted tree on the leather cover and a glyph on its spine that looked like planets and moons in their different phases.

"Bring it here, won't you?"

I picked it up and I could tell by the strange prickling in my fingers this was, without a doubt, something important and powerful. It was also heavy, more so than Negan's bat Lucille had ever been. I nearly tottered over the side of the chair as its full weight slid into my arms and threatened to compromise my balance. Carefully I hopped down and dropped it gently on the wooden chest where Vanessa was seated.

She looked at the book with a strange mix of fear, disgust, and respect. Her hand hovered over the tome as she spoke carefully.

"Of all the texts, of all the spells, this is the most cursed."

"It's a curse book? Like the locked part of the spell book you showed me?"

He gaze looked very stern as she looked at me. "No… not like that."

She had my complete attention now as I gazed down at the thing with rapt attention. Unlike the Book of Shadows Vanessa often taught me from me this was something else entirely.

"What is it?" I said in the same hushed voice she carried.

"Forbidden. The Poetry of Death." Then her gaze turned gravely to me. "If ever the day comes when my Little Beetle is crushed and beaten, if whatever gods she trusts in abandons her completely, only then does she open it. And on that day she will never be the same. She will have gone away from God and mercy… forever."

I could feel the weight of her words stronger and heavier than the book itself and I could tell by her tone, this thing would cost me my soul to read from. It could offer me vengeance on my enemies if I wished it now, but I still wasn't ready to risk such a price. this was power that would snake behind any shield or spell of protection and render it entirely useless.

"Did you read from this?" I asked.

She took her time to answer. "I did. And it has forever changed me and my soul. I spoke the spells to cast one I hated into pain and suffering and the worse of that curse fell on my shoulders. Remember Little Beetle, the body's suffering is all but temporary, but the soul's suffering is eternal. You remember what I said about curses, yes?"

I flinched, bitter memories of various failed curses on Negan rising as I repeated her words from my first few months of tutelage under her. "When you cast a curse you curse two. You curse the enemy and you curse you."

"The most important rule." She hissed desperately.

"Why did you show me this?" I asked. It didn't seem to be in relation to the problems I was facing at the moment.

"To show you what could happen to people who become lost and desperate enough to resort to unnatural methods—to vengeance. To remind you what could happen to you—what you could become. Were you to take this in your hands and speak the words within, you would become as dark as your friend Glenn has turned into."

"Darker than that?"

"Worse than that."

"But you read from this book and you're not like that."

"I paid a terrible cost by reading these incantations. I suffered in a way you are still too young to clearly understand. It took me an entire century to reform my soul and even after that, the darkness that came from it still lingers on my spirit; like a bloody stain on a silk dress. Never able to be scrubbed out no matter how well I wash it."

"But you don't seem evil or tainted to me."

"You have yet to see me at my worst." She turned towards the wall looking towards some distant point that remained unseen by me. "What I'm trying to warn you about is in the near future some very horrible things may come to pass to you or your family. I've shown this to you because I want you to understand what darkness is coming and the evil it brings, but I do not want you to linger in it. Even so, as God gave Adam and Eve a choice I must give one to you as well."

I stared at the tome entranced by the enormous twisted tree on the cover of it and tempted for the slightest of moments.

"Is this really a choice or a temptation?" I asked, feeling suddenly repulsed by this thing.

"It is a possibility." She corrected. "A road. A dark and treacherous road. It might lead you to safety but it is fleeting and the house you find is bleak and cold and full of things that bump and slither in the night. I was weak and allured by those dark things, seduced into the strong embrace of those choices before they stung me in the back. Be stronger than the Scorpion, Little Beetle. Wear your armor thick, and keep in the sun where you belong.

"And always be true."

Author's Notes: A lot of references from Penny Dreadful today. If you haven't seen the series I recommend it. Like the Walking Dead, it's going to be very graphic; lots of blood and guts and things that bump in the night.

As always your comments are appreciated and I love hearing from you guys. :D